Distinguished Mr. Chairman,

Allow me to, first of all, express our gratitude to the Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Kofi Annan, whose presence at the opening of this Conference has testified to the sincere and continuous resolve of the United Nations to promote peace and justice throughout the world.

At the same time, Mr. Chairman, we are fully aware that without your personal involvement and the contribution of the whole Secretariat we would not be in a position to hold this international Conference. We are also thankful to the Italian Government for their generous offer to host this historical gathering. I would also like to thank all the delegations who have spoken thus far, for their inspired statements.
I have the honour to, on behalf of the Republic of Croatia, be present at a Conference which will certainly be regarded as one of the historical corner stones in the way the humankind perceives law and justice. We have gathered here in order to, on behalf of our respective states, establish a permanent international judicial body with the power to try the crimes of greatest international concern.
 

This Conference is the result of a years long effort to overcome conceptual, political, cultural and other differences which have burdened the establishment of such a judicial body. Today, we have the opportunity to turn aspirations to establish mechanisms for international criminal trials into reality. The fact that we are establishing such an international Court is also carying with it a very strong moral message. Humankind condemns and cannot accept certain grave crimes. We are ready to penalize them, regardless of national, religious, political or other identity of the perpetrator.

The Nuremberg and Tokyo trials that took place after the World War II, as well as the work of the International War Crimes Tribunal for former Yugoslavia and the International War Crimes Tribunal for Rwanda, have all given a strong impetus for the establishment of a permanent and universal International Criminal Court. The Republic of Croatia was among the countries that have initiated the establishment of an International War Crimes Tribunal for former Yugoslavia. Croatia has cooperated with this Tribunal and has significantly contributed to its activities. On several occasions, when differences arose with regard to the issues of the Tribunal’s proceedings, Croatia has tried to, through legal means and in front of the Tribunal, solve them. We can therefore state that Croatia’s contribution to the activities of the Tribunal has been multifold. It has included different modes of legal aid, extradiction of the indicted by the Tribunal and participation in the proceedings pertaining to statutory matters.
Distinguished participants,

The experience with the international criminal trials that we have gathered so far clearly shows that the establishment of a permanent and universal court is only possible if the conditions for just and equal treatment of all individuals and states are fully met. The need for the court to be effective obviously presuposes that we accept abandoning, to a certain degree, the classical concept of sovereignty of states. At the same time the principle of subsidiarity must be fully acknowledged.
The Republic of Croatia has already accepted a similar International Crimes Tribunal, the one for former Yugoslavia. Croatia is therefore rightfully expecting that the other states, while establishing the future International Criminal Court, recognize the fact that it needs to be more effective than the ad-hoc Tribunal in the Hague.

The Court that we are establishing must be entirely independent of the daily political developments.  Its prosecutor must have full independence, while the powers of the Court cannot be made dependant of the political will of individual states. The Court must have such powers and financial independence that will make possible the fullfilment of a noble goal that we are entrusting it with.
On the other hand, all states, regardless of their size, economic or military strenght, have to cooperate with the Court in the same manner and implement its directives. We must also have the guarantees that the cases that the Court will be processing are indeed the ones that deserve it through its gravity and significance. In other words, we must make sure that the Court is not burdened with the minor violations that do not deserve its attention.

Throughout this Conference, Croatia shall fully support such statutory solutions that will fully enable the necessary level of efficacy of the new Court. We are in favour of an effective, independent and thus credible International Criminal Court being established in the near future.

Through establishment of a permanent and universal Court, that will provide for equality and justice for all, there will be no need to periodically establish ad hoc criminal tribunals. This will enable us to escape from political arbitrariness and possible violations of one of the fundamental principles of the international law – the principle of sovereign equality of all states.

The universal criminal Court must provide for global affirmation of the highest legal and moral values of the humankind. All states and all individuals must enjoy the same mechanisms of protection in front of this court. They must also share the same obligations.
It is my hope that the Statute of the future International Criminal Court to be adopted at the end of this Conference will reflect the above mentioned principles fully supported by Croatia and the other like-minded countries. We would thus turn a new page, not only in the history of international and criminal law, but also in the history of the humankind.

Thank you.